Local Hazard Mitigation Plan

The City of Palos Verdes Estates is preparing a Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) in accordance with the Federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000). DMA 2000 requires local governments to develop and submit HMPs as a condition of receiving Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and other mitigation project grant funding. This includes pre-disaster mitigation funding and post-disaster mitigation funding for existing City of Palos Verdes Estates facilities.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) describes hazard mitigation as “any action taken to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk to human life and property from natural hazards.” Although the requirement set by 44 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Subpart M Section 206.401 requires a planning area to describe only natural hazards that may affect the jurisdiction, most planning areas include technological and human-caused hazards in the HMP to represent the total risk from hazards to the planning area. In addition, the State of California, enacted as SB 379, requires all local planning areas to assess vulnerabilities associated with climate change.

Hazards can result in death and destruction of property and infrastructure. The work done to minimize the impact of hazard events to life and property is called hazard mitigation. Often, these damaging events occur in the same locations over time (i.e. earthquakes along fault lines), and cause repeated damage. Because of this, hazard mitigation is often focused on reducing repetitive loss, thereby breaking the disaster cycle. The essential steps of hazard mitigation are:

Identify and profile hazards that affect the local area

Analyze the people and facilities at risk from those hazards

Develop mitigation actions to lessen or reduce the impact of the profiled hazards

What are the Requirements and Process for the City of Palos Verdes Estates Hazard Mitigation Plan?

The requirements for an HMP are described in 44 CFR Parts 201 and 206. FEMA has produced a Local Mitigation Plan Review Tool to demonstrate how the mitigation plan meets the regulation in 44 CFR § 201.6. The plan review tool has a regulation checklist that provides a summary of FEMA’s evaluation of whether the plan has addressed all requirements. Planners can also use the checklist prior to submitting the plan for approval to ensure they have addressed all the requirements.

The primary tasks that will take place during the planning process include:

Capability analysis

Vulnerability assessment

Hazard identification

Defining a hazard mitigation strategy through actions and projects

Implementing the hazard mitigation actions and projects

Public and Stakeholder Input

**05/15/17 Update: Public comment has been closed.

The HMP planning process requires input from stakeholders and the public. Generally, project stakeholders include neighboring jurisdictions and their agencies and departments that might interface with City during a disaster response. The public is represented by community members and community organizations that have an interest in City projects and actions to mitigate hazards and save lives and property.

The City of Palos Verdes Estates will continue to update the LHMP website throughout the planning process. Documents will be made available on this webpage. The City will post updates on social media when documents are available for review.

The City of Palos Verdes Estates welcomes the public to review and comment on the LHMP documents as they become available. For questions of comments contact the City of Palos Verdes Estates Emergency Services Coordinator, Marcelle Herrera at mherrera@pvestates.org or 310-378-4211. You may also contact Director of Public Works/City Engineer, Ken Rukavina at krukavina@pvestates.org or at 310-378-0383.